An entrepreneur with a rock solid trust in God

Fr Patrick James (PJ) McGlinchey improved the lives of the people of Jeju Island in South Korea over decades through agricultural development. He established the St Isidore Farm to eradicate poverty and set up a hospital, nursing home,  kindergarten, credit union and other welfare centres and became a friend of the poor and excluded.

Fr Patrick James (PJ) McGlinchey. Photos: Missionary Society of St Columban

The president of Korea Moon Jae-In issued a special message of sympathy acknowledging Fr PJ McGlinchey’s contribution to the people of Jeju after the Columban missionary died on Monday, April 23, 2018 at the Isidore Hospice, which he had established in Jeju.

Patrick James was born on June 6, 1928 in Raphoe, Co. Donegal, Ireland. His mother was Sarah Boyle and his father was Patrick McGlinchey, one of two veterinarians in Co. Donegal.

The fifth born in a family of six boys and four girls, he attended St Eunan’s College in the cathedral city of Letterkenny and later went to Dalgan seminary where he was ordained on December 21, 1951.

He was appointed to Korea and arrived in Pusan with his classmates on April 11, 1953 while the Korean War was still being fought further north.

After seven months of language study he was appointed assistant priest to the parish of Suncheon in the Jeolla Province where he worked for about five months.

From there he was appointed to start a parish in Hallim which would become the third parish on the island of Jeju. He arrived by boat on April 17, 1954.

To promote evangelisation, Fr PJ hired seven full-time catechists and sent them to various villages in the area.

Over the years six parishes have been established in the villages to which these catechists were sent to preach the Gospel.

After the war, free corn was available to feed the people. Fr PJ, fearing that people might become Catholics just to get food, gave all the catechumens a rigorous test before approving them for baptism.

He was also very careful not to discriminate on the basis of religion in distributing free food.

He felt very strongly that giving food to the starving should only be the first step in aid. In order not to make the people dependent on handouts he felt it necessary to facilitate people helping themselves to become financially independent.

He believed that if he was going to preach a loving God he had to show that love in concrete ways and so he started a process of reading the 'signs of the times' and responding.

He often quoted Matthew 25:40 “Whatever you do to the least … you do to me“. The various projects he set up were not seen as an alternative to or an optional part of evangelization but rather as an integral part of what he was called to do as a missionary in Korea.

Among the works he started in response to the situation at the time were: setting up a 4H club (4-H is a social education movement, which helps to inspire the youth of Korea to be agriculturally minded, as well as to become well-rounded individuals by living by the 4-H club ideals of head, heart, hands and health), a knitting and weaving industry with the help of the Columban Sisters, helping the set-up of small independent farms across the island, a pig industry and a cooperative, a feedmill, a training farm, a milk and cheese factory.

 

Fr PJ McGlinchey funeral. Photo: Missionary Society of St Columban, Korea

He set up the first credit union on the island and also established an organic dairy farm and developed a stud farm to train horses.

He set up an elderly person’s home, a clinic conducted by Columban Sisters and which later became a hospice for the dying, a kindergarten and a youth education centre, a retreat house and pilgrimage site, known as the ‘Hill of Grace’, containing life sized statues showing scenes from the life of Christ, Stations of the Cross and more recently, Resurrection scenes.

Various religious congregations were invited to work and minister in these initiatives and all these educational and social welfare projects were promoted under the auspices of the Isidore Development Association and supported by income from the farm and the feedmill.

When news of his death reached the diocese, the Korean diocesan priests set up a rota for three days and celebrated Mass for Fr PJ every two hours in the Hallim Parish beginning at 6:00 am and finishing at 10:00 pm. As each Mass ended, the Litany for the Dead was prayed by all present.

People flocked to the Church during those three days and the parish provided a meal for them. At the same time at every Church in the diocese a memorial altar was set up with a photo of Fr PJ and people prayed for him during that time. Not just the believers, but people from all strata of society came to pay their respects from all over Korea and from overseas as well. It was an extraordinary tribute to his life.

Fr PJ was buried on Friday, April 27, 2018 with the funeral Mass celebrated in the Church of the Blessed Trinity which he had built. The Church was packed to capacity (it seats 2,400), with people overflowing into the yard.

80 priests concelebrated Mass along with Bishop Peter Kang U-Il of Jeju, his auxiliary, Bishop Moon, and the retired Bishop Kim.

Bishop Kang in his homily listed all the services provided by the Isidore Corporation and while marvelling at how one man could do so much he reminded all present, quoting Fr PJ, that the main force behind his achievements was a rock solid trust in God.

After the Mass, the coffin was carried to the grave by a team of diocesan and Columban priests.

There the ancient prayers were offered by Bishop Kang and Columban Fr Michael Riordan. The grave was blessed and Fr PJ was committed to the earth from which he came. People silently watched as the grave was filled and then one by one they all departed.

May Fr Patrick James McGlinchey rest in peace.

Columban Frs Michael Riordan and Donal O'Keeffe both work and  reside in Korea.

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